Courting Failure: Women and the Law in Twentieth-century LiteratureFor the past twenty years, the law and literature movement has been gaining ground. More recently, a feminist perspective has enriched the field. With Courting Failure: Women and the Law in Twentieth-Century Literature, Heidi Slettedahl Macpherson adds a compelling voice to the discussion. Courting Failure critically explores the representation of women, fictional and historical, in conflict with the law. Macpherson focuses on the judicial system and the staging of women's guilt, examining both the female suspect and the female victim in a wide variety of media, including novels like Toni Morrison's Beloved and Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace, theatrical plays, movies such as I Want to Live! and Legally Blonde, and the television series Ally McBeal. In these texts and others, canonical or popular, Macpherson exposes the court as an arena in which women often fail, or succeed only by subverting the system. Combining feminist literary theory with the discourse of the law and literature movement, Courting Failure is a highly readable and analytically rigorous study of justice and gender on the page and screen. |
From inside the book
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Page 13
... West's ter- minology requires readers to engage in a radical rethink ; by using the literary woman trope insistently , West constantly draws attention to gender , even as she is , apparently , erasing it . This erasure of gender is thus ...
... West's ter- minology requires readers to engage in a radical rethink ; by using the literary woman trope insistently , West constantly draws attention to gender , even as she is , apparently , erasing it . This erasure of gender is thus ...
Page 18
... West argues that even feminist victories result sometimes in oxy- morons , and she uses as examples the terms " date rape " and " sexual harassment . " West deconstructs the link between pleasure ( “ date , ” “ sexual ” ) and pain ...
... West argues that even feminist victories result sometimes in oxy- morons , and she uses as examples the terms " date rape " and " sexual harassment . " West deconstructs the link between pleasure ( “ date , ” “ sexual ” ) and pain ...
Page 153
... West suggests that Glaspell was com- pelled by similar motives to pen her one - act play Trifles . Perhaps recognizing the nature of the law to suppress the voice of woman , West argues that one can propose the theoretical figure of ...
... West suggests that Glaspell was com- pelled by similar motives to pen her one - act play Trifles . Perhaps recognizing the nature of the law to suppress the voice of woman , West argues that one can propose the theoretical figure of ...
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Courting Failure: Women and the Law in Twentieth-century Literature Heidi Slettedahl Macpherson No preview available - 2007 |
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abuse Adam African American Alias Grace Alice Ally McBeal Amanda Andrea Pia Yates Anna Anne Annette Bennington appears argues Aristodemou Atwood chapter child constructed context court courtroom crime criminal critics Culture death Dessa Rose Dessa's Doris edited episode example explore fact female femininity Feminism feminist fictional film focuses Foucault gaze gender Grace Marks Graham guilty Hays Code historical husband Ibid innocence Isla italics in original Jacqueline St judge Judith Resnik jury Justice killed Kingston Penitentiary law and literature Law Review lawyer Legally Blonde lesbian literary Lizzie Borden London male Manon Margaret mother motherhood murder novel offers Oxford panopticon play position Press Gang prison punishment rape relation Resnik Robin West Roddy role Rufel Sarah scene Sethe Sethe's sexual Sibyl slave Slave Narratives slavery social stance story suggests Susan texts tion trial University Press violence voice Weisberg woman women Wuornos Yates York